David's Worst Fight

With David Sampson’s permission, I am printing this story of his nastiest fight. He is likely the most pugnacious Sampson:

Self-discipline; that is the one thing that I am grateful to the army for.  They gave me a lot of discipline when I needed it and, importantly, reduced the amount of time available as to when I could really fuck up.  Fortunately, I managed to slip through the time of danger.  Sandy Hutton probably remembers about my experience in the SF jail and the assault and battery charges made against me by 3 police officers.  I got out of that one on pure, unadulterated luck.

I was sleeping in my car, and two cops, one on each arm, forcibly pulled me out when I didn't comply with their order to get out because I was sound asleep, dropping me down to the pavement on my chin - four stitch gash.  According to the cops, I then gathered my legs under me and came up as hard and fast as I could, catching one cop squarely in the nose, breaking it and pretty much knocking him out.  The second cop and I then started duking it out; I had him up against a nearby telephone poll doing my best to beat him to a pulp - I knocked out a couple of his teeth as I recall - when a third cop, who they were giving a lift home who had remained in the car, came up from behind and belayed me across the head with his Billy club - 12 stitch gash on the top and back of my head.  I didn't go down, however, and started belting him; in the struggle, I managed to wrest the Billy club away and threw it into the nearby ravine where it was never found.  He told his captain that he was trying to get his gun out of his holster when I broke away from him, staggered a step or two away and slumped to the ground.

That was the story the cops told their boss.

As for me, the last thing I remember before all this happened was pulling the car over because I knew I couldn't stay awake to make it home.  The next thing I remember was being on the ground with a cop’s knee on my back as they were trying to put handcuffs on me.  They succeeded and pulled me up and the cop who used to have a nose came in and started working me over with body and kidney punches.  As for me, I was absolutely shocked, looking at these three cops who were all bleeding and beat to shit, madder than hornets.  I just started saying, "Guys, guys, what's going on; what's happening" and after a couple of seconds it dawned on them that I was sober and had no clue what had happened.  The cop with the ex-nose stopped hitting me, looked at me and said "Oh shit".  From that point on, nothing happened except they refused to give me a blood test when I demanded it.  I knew that a blood test would show that I hadn't been drinking and there would be no rational explanation for why they hauled me out of the car where I was just sleeping, minding my own business.  Ironically, at that time there was a big publicity push in California saying that if you were tired for any reason, just pull your car over to the side of the road for safety reasons!

As a result, when I went to court, the charges were all dismissed and the whole thing was publicly attributed to "mistaken identity".  I did agree, however, to buy a new Billy club and coat which I had ripped to pieces for the cop who hit me over the head and a bottle of whiskey for the other two - this was done on an informal basis by one of the owners of the bar where I worked who was involved in San Francisco/Marina-area politics.  My attorney - another one of the owners of the bar - had a law partner who had been the campaign manager for the judge when she had run for election the previous year.  Clearly the luck of the Sampson.  I bought a gift for the judge, also.  All told, it cost about $250 attorneys fees and $200 for the cops and judge. 

 I liked that system better than the one we have today.The arrest was in the SF Chronicle and Examiner in July, 1963, sometime but the court appearance and the charges all magically disappeared.